Yellowtail Invade Southland Waters

The Aztec returned from a calico bass-fishing excursion to San Clemente Island last Saturday, and the island hasn’t been the same since.

That’s because those aboard the Aztec, intending to flip soft plastics in the kelp for calicos, instead got into a frantic yellowtail bite that lasted more than an hour.

“Now everybody’s going out there,” said Don Ashley, owner of Long Beach Sportfishing.

And everybody is hooking up.

Skipper Ray Lagmay on the Toronado telephoned Ashley at 10 a.m. Tuesday and said his 30 customers had already boated 110 fish. They finished the day at 1 p.m. with a count of 131 yellowtail weighing 10-20 pounds.

And the bite may last. Pilots spotting mackerel for commercial seiners were heard on radio reporting massive schools of yellowtail just beneath the surface of what has been a flat and glassy sea.

“It’s been years and years, probably 13 or 14, since we’ve had this kind of spring fishing,” Ashley said.

It has been a memorable spring. The unseasonably warm water--high 60s to low 70s--is believed to be largely the result of the recent, lengthy heat wave and subsequent lack of westerly winds that normally cool the ocean’s surface.

The yellowtail have responded with an invasion that stretches in bands to well south of the border. Buzz Brizendine, skipper of the Prowler out of Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego, reported 80 fish on board by noon Tuesday at the Coronado Islands.

Spicing up the action, barracuda, which showed weeks ago, big bonito and calico bass have been extremely active as well.

“The calico bass are still at all the islands, and the half-day boats have been slaughtering the barracuda off Huntington, and the calicos committed suicide at Horseshoe [Kelp outside L.A. and Long Beach harbors],” Ashley said.

Sounds like a killer season all right.

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With a spring like this, what will the summer be like?

Well, two weeks ago skippers returning from long-range trips reported schools of yellowfin tuna 290 miles from Point Loma, and there have been unconfirmed reports of yellowfin showing under kelp paddies outside Ensenada.

And last week the first bluefin of the season was landed even closer aboard the Legend out of Seaforth Landing in San Diego.

Water conditions are certainly ideal for an early season on the exotic species. It could be only a matter of time before the fish figure it out.

One sub-tropical fish apparently did and ended up in a gunny sack.

A popeye catalufa, better known as a big-eyed squirrel fish, was caught at the Coronados just south of the border, well north of its normal range.

“It’s a bright red fish sort of like a rock cod but broader from top to bottom, like a perch,” said Bob Fletcher, president of the Sportfishing Assn. of California. “But it’s the eye that catches your attention--it’s huge.”